Dan Brown will be teaching a Master Class. Dan Brown’s thrillers have sold more than 250 million copies, including The Da Vinci Code (which was made into a movie, with sequels starring Tom Hanks). In Dan’s Masterclass, he unveils his process for turning ideas into gripping narratives. He’ll teach you how to research for your story, craft characters, and sustain suspense.

Learn with one of the best with 19 lessons on writing vivid characters and realistic dialogue. There will be a workbook along with the videos, and Dan will critique select members of the class. You can enroll for $90. Have fun and learn lots!

If you haven’t heard, PitchWars has posted the mentor’s blog hops for 2018! Woo-hoo! Can you believe it’s that time of year again? Be sure to check out each mentors blog in the genre you write to see what’s on their wish list. There are 107 mentors total this year. Also, keep an eye on the agent’s pagebecause many have already signed up to participate. The PitchWars staff will update the page as more agents enroll. (So far, 63 as of this moment.)

Unfamiliar with PitchWars? This is an event where mentors select a mentee’s manuscript to revise to help them get ready for an agent round. That’s right, they help a mentee rework their entire manuscript for free. This is because agented authors and editors want to give back to the writerly community. How exciting is that? There is so much love people!

Submissions will be open from August 27, 2018 (midnight EST) and ends on August 29, 2018 (10pm EST). Manuscripts must be completed and polished in order to enter. This is the crème de la crème of writing contests and only happens once a year! So, get those manuscripts edited and select the mentors you want to sub to. You only get to pick four! And as always, good luck!

Wow! If you’ve ever dreamed of writing for DC Comics, this is your chance. But please note, this is for writer’s who’ve been published. However, the written work does not have to be a comic. They’ll also accept up to two published fiction works that’ll highlight an authors skill as a possible DC writer. By end of the workshop, the participant(s) may obtain a position writing on one of the DC Comic book series.

Submissions open March 1st, 2018 and ends March 31, 2018. They express on the website that files can be large to upload, so don’t wait until the last minute to try. They will not accept resubmission or changes after the deadline. No exceptions.

For complete information on how to enter and the dates of when the workshop will start, go (Link Removed). As always, good luck!

Author Mentor Matchup was created by Heather Kaczynski and Alexa Donne. The object is to match new writers with authors further along in the publishing process and gain invaluable mentoring! That’s right, this is an opportunity to get your manuscript critiqued (for free) before submitting to agents!

Authors can select up to four mentors during the submission window between October 19. 2017 through October 24, 2017. Be sure to check the mentor BIOS to learn what age groups and genres they wish to see in their inbox!

Please note there is a two-step process for entering:

Fill out the submission form. (I believe the form will appear during the sub window period.)

Email the proper information to authormentormatch@gmail.com:

A query (pasted in the body of the email!)

The first 50 pages/3 chapters of your novel (whichever is longer & can be attached)

A synopsis

Be sure to include in the subject line the manuscripts Age Category +Genre + Title. (ie: YA Sci-Fi – Mars Plants are the Bomb) on the email submission. And check out the site in order to know how to select the mentors you wish to submit to because it isn’t clear quite yet. (I’m guessing this might be part of the submission form.) As always, good luck!

This is a reminder that #TeenPit submissions open today at 8am EDT. The event is hosted by K. Hopkins. The main objective is to select a teen writer for a guaranteed slot in PitchWars (hosted by Brenda Drake) later this summer. Teens who wish to enter #TeenPit must be high school-aged students (grades 10-12). The mentors are only accepting middle grade and young adult manuscripts (absolutely no adult stories, sorry).

Author Mentor Match is open for submissions. This event matches aspiring writers with agented authors to hone their completed manuscripts. There is no agent round or contest aspect, but a focus on building lasting relationships. Mentors will help writers revise their manuscript before querying, give advice and tips on agents, and support through the process.

This is a big deal in the writerly world because paying for editing can be extremely expensive! At first glance, the website seems like it may only be for young adult stories, but upon further reading it is clearly for YA & MG. If you’re interested in submitting, go check out the mentors involved (and get a load of their books) . Be sure to view the guidelines and submit before 11:59pm PT on April 23, 2017.

If you haven’t heard, the Revise & Resub contest is newly created for writers looking to win a complete and free editing of their manuscript. Although their main goal is to help authors polish their stories, they’ll showcase the winners finished projects on the website and agents are welcome to attend! So, spread the word.

Because the Pitch To Publication editors found themselves with open availability because P2P got postponed, they created this contest to still give writers the opportunity to win edits. Yay! The submission window opens April 7, 2017 at noon EDT and closes April 9, 2017 at 11:59 PM EDT.

You can visit the site for a complete list of editors. To learn the submission guidelines, go here. As always, good luck!

Writing In The Margins has helped writers create appealing words to readers for awhile. What I didn’t know, they also have dedicated time to help writers find sensitivity readers. With publishers understanding the need for diverse voices in today’s world, there’s been a push for these types of manuscripts. For those unfamiliar, the diversity push means publishers are looking for stories told by the minority voices.

But, what if you’re a male or female heterosexual Caucasian in perfect health who has a great story idea for a Muslim main character, or a fabulous manuscript for a lead character with autism? Does this mean you shouldn’t write it? Of course you should. However, what this really means is you’re possibly not the best person to write the story. But wait, I just told you to write the story. Of course, you can absorb yourself into research. After all, you can find nearly everything on the internet these days, and writer’s have done so with secondary characters. But, there is something else they do, which I recently learned about during WriteOnCon.

If you want to write a story with a diverse leading character and you’re obviously not what our culture considers to be a minority, then getting a sensitivity reader might be what you need when writing outside of your own culture and experience. Writing In The Margins has a list of sensitivity readers of Muslim, Judaism, Autism, African-American, Japanese, LGBT, Deafness, Latina, Transgender, and more!

This is how the site defines the sensitivity reader: A sensitivity reader reads through a manuscript for issues of representation and for instances of bias on the page. The goal of a sensitivity reader isn’t to edit a manuscript clarity and logic, although that may be an additional service offered. A sensitivity reader reviews a manuscript for internalized bias and negatively charged language. A sensitivity reader is there to help make sure you do not make a mistake, but they are also NOT a guarantee against making a mistake.

If you want to write a story with leading diverse characters and aren’t a minority, use someone from the site’s list to polish your script. As always, good luck!